THE leading opposition party, Chadema, has suffered yet another severe blow, in the wake of its former Secretary General, Dr Vincent Mashinji, defecting to the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) on Tuesday.
Dr Mashinji, who served as secretary general post and a member of Chadema’s Central Committee (CC) from March 2016 to December 2019, announced his defection at CCM’s sub-head offices along Lumumba Street in Dar es Salaam.
His move comes barely three months after he was dropped from Chadema’s CC following his removal from the post, after the internal general election.
He was replaced by John Mnyika who is the Member of Parliament for Kibamba Constituency in Dar es Salaam.
He joins other heavyweight politicians former Prime Ministers Edward Lowassa and Frederick Sumaye who relocated to CCM from Chadema where they had been since 2015.
Mr Lowassa was the presidential flag bearer on a Chadema ticket and also represented a coalition of parties under the ‘ Ukawa’ umbrella but lost to CCM candidate Dr John Magufuli who scooped 8,882,935 votes against 6,072,848 of the opposition candidate.
On his arrival at the Lumumba sub offices yesterday, Dr Mashinji was received by CCM’s Secretary for Ideology and Publicity, Mr Humphrey Polepole, who commended him for the decision aimed at sharing his contribution to the development of the country.
On his arrival there, the exChadema high ranking official was donning his Chadema uniform, which he removed and put on a green shirt shortly after delivering a speech.
The event was broadcast live by some local television stations. He said before reaching his decision, he pondered keenly on the country’s political and economic trend and concluded that CCM was ready and capable of implementing the development agenda.
“In my former party, apart from being Secretary General I also happened to serve as the Chairman of Southern Africa Network of Democrats (SAND), and thus participated in many projects, including preparation of the reworked policy in 2018,” he said, adding: “I have studied critically and realised that this party (CCM) does what it takes to effecting development; it listens and walks the talk, while others are lagging far behind. Therefore I am asking the national chairman, President John Magufuli, to accept me here so that I can add my contribution to the development of the country.”
Dr Mashinji was of a view that the long standing arguments and debates delay the country from moving forward as he is passionate of seeing things move forward.
According to him, he has witnessed a mismatch between the philosophy and what is being done by his former party.
In his remarks, Mr Polepole welcomed him to the party, hailing his decision, adding that it was crucial to cooperate on issues that are of public interest, especially in effecting development for the country.
He expressed excitement over the move, saying the government had done a lot of things for the interest of the people and deserves compliments rather than blame.
“We should embrace the philosophy of our president that development is for all regardless political affiliation, personally I’m impressed by your decision,” he explained.
Over the weekend, Ndanda MP Mr Cecil Mwambe rejoined CCM, complaining about what he termed as lack of democratic ideals within the party with which he had parted ways.
He attributed his decision to ill-feelings generated within Chadema, after he had declared interest in contesting the party’s national chairmanship.
With their move, pundits believe that there must be something wrong in the opposition party that needed to be solved immediately, if they want to build a strong institution.
A senior lecturer at the University of Dodoma, Dr Paul Loisulile, stresses the need for taking into account all the complaints raised by their former members to avoid further disintegration.
“They have to do something; there might be truth somewhere on what is being complained about by all the defectors, including issues around misuse of subsidy,” he explained.
During the 2015 General elections, Chadema got 34 parliamentary seats for elected MPs but has remained with 23 after the defection of eight of them to the ruling party; one died and two others were disqualified by the Parliamentary Standing Orders.
Those who have defected are Mr Mwambe (Ndanda, Mtwara) Mwita Waitara (Ukonga, Dar es Salaam) Puline Gekul (Babati Urban, Manyara), James Millya (Simanjiro, Manyara), Joseph Mkundi (Ukerewe, Mwanza), Ryoba Marwa (Serengeti, Mara), Julius Kalanga (Monduli, Arusha) and Dr James Molel (Siha, Kilimanjaro).
Two lawmakers who lost their seats are Joshua Nasari (Arumeru East, Arusha) who was replaced by Dr John Pallangyo (CCM) and Tundu Lissu (Singida East, Singida) who was replaced by Miraji Mtaturu of CCM.
Plus, Chadema didn’t retain its Buyungu constituency in Kigoma Region following the death of its MP, Kasuku Bilago who died in 2018 as the seat was won by CCM’s Engineer Christopher Chiza.
